Becoming Breathless
by SolarRose29
Summary: "I'm worried about Tony." Pepper tells him. "He isn't acting like himself, you know." Steve doesn't know. He only met the man three months ago. But if he had to hazard speculation, he'd imagine glimpsing the void of space can change a man.


Finally tried my hand at some horror. *pats self on the back while wondering if the Muse is cause for concern*

Set just after the first Avengers movie.

* * *

He's on the floor. Polished hardwood. That's the where. Habit is the why. Tony appears, bent at the waist and tilted forward like vultures examining carrion.

"The others are waiting," Tony says. He's got a bow tie fastened around his neck, brilliant crimson against the pale of his shirt.

Steve levers up from the floor, feels Tony's eyes the whole way. He makes it to the door, pauses. Goes out and waits for footsteps to stalk him.

**OoOoO**

"I'm worried about him." Pepper confides this over a cup of steaming herbal tea.

Steve isn't drinking tea. He's in front of the coffee machine, contemplating the empty grounds container.

"I think- It could be…" Her hair gets smoothed with a hand and Pepper draws herself straighter at the table. "I'm probably just tired."

Tired, Steve can understand.

**OoOoO**

Tony's stare has a certain weight. Like a second force of gravity. An inescapable pressure exerted on the human body. Steve's learned to recognize that signature strain, how it constricts the fine nerve endings along his spine, contracting them in electrical spasms.

He turns and Tony's there. In the unlit hallway. Watching. Steve dismounts the bar, raises an eyebrow for the incoming joke, anticipates the 'nice moves, Gabby Douglas'. It never comes.

**OoOoO**

Pepper's more frazzled this time. It's there in the clumps of mascara in her lashes, the imperfect line of color along her bottom lip. "I'm worried about him. He isn't acting like himself, you know."

Steve doesn't know. He only met the man three months ago. But if he had to hazard speculation, he'd imagine glimpsing the void of space can change a person.

The coffee canister is still empty.

**OoOoO**

He tries not to get involved. It's really not his place. But it's hard not to notice the strange lights in the lab at unholy hours of the night. He's restless and wandering the halls and he finds the play of light and dark unsettling against the glass, Tony's silhouette lit by alternating patterns.

This goes on for some time. Him wandering and Tony outlined in shadow.

**OoOoO**

The garage is a neutral space and he waits until Happy deposits Tony near the elevator and goes to park the car. Steve approaches, hands in jacket pockets, loose and unassuming.

"Going up?" Tony's grin sparkles in the too bright illumination, hand on the elevator controls.

Steve nods, steps in beside him. Ignores how the walls seem insufficient to contain both of them at once. "So...I noticed you've been working a lot."

Tony presses a button on the panel, leans back and side-eyes him. "Have you ever considered the implications of a BSA calculation? If you took a person and rolled them out like cookie dough, how big they would be?"

Trying to remain undaunted, Steve presses on. "Are you working on anything in particular?"

"My magnum opus," Tony assures him, jaws hinged like a primed bear trap.

**OoOoO**

The quinjet barely fits on the pad. Steve squints in the sun, looks to where Clint's propped himself against the open rear ramp.

"I'm going to miss you," Tony says, voice echoing with _I'll see you again. _

Pepper stands behind and to the left, mascara immaculate around distressed eyes. When he shakes Tony's hand, he suppresses the urge to shudder.

**OoOoO**

It's nearly Christmas before Steve's in New York again. He tries to contact Tony or even Pepper. No answer. His boots leave slushy trails on fresh lacquer when Tony's AI lets him into the Tower.

"Measurements. Measurements."

Tony's scrabbling across the penthouse floor, movements simian and sporadic. There's chalk in his hand. Steve can hear it scrape on the hardwood as Tony sketches human outlines.

"Measurements."

It's one of the most disturbing things he's ever witnessed. He's frozen. Indecision. Revulsion. Both and neither.

In the morning, it feels like a bad dream. The aftertaste of oxidized copper and battery acid.

**OoOoO**

Bruce is gone first, though it's not until Pepper disappears that they discover his absence. He finds all this out second hand. Natasha's face is grim in his computer screen. The Philippines are a seventeen hour flight from New York. Instead, Fury sends a quinjet and meets him on the Helicarrier's bridge.

"And you didn't notice anything out of the ordinary?" Fury's single eye skewers him to his chair.

His back is ramrod straight and he stares straight ahead, military posture for a dressing down. He noticed. It was hard to miss. But he didn't then - doesn't now - know what it all means.

**OoOoO**

If there's one thing that can be said about Stark, it's that he's intelligent. Genius level smart. Cunning and resourceful too. Stark's already three steps ahead by the time they figure it out.

Banner goes first. Potts after. Rhodes next. Then Barton.

Nothing but scorch marks in a field. He reports this, voice dead and eyes dead and wondering what else is dead. The mission to intercept Thor has failed. Fury draws a long breath. Steve stares straight ahead, thinks about empty coffee cans and chalk dust on floor wax.

**OoOoO**

"We'll find them." Natasha places a strategic hand on his arm.

Tony's living room is ostentatious. The waterfall burbles and the fireplace is silent. It's dark outside. Cold even, for California. There's sweat trickling down his neck.

Weeks. It's been weeks. No signs. No clues. No leads. Theories. They have those. Too many. None of them good. Fury grills him every other day. Probing for insight, missed hints, some startling revelation that will unravel the mystery and recover the missing.

Steve has nothing left to give.

**OoOoO**

They've hardly left each other's side - Natasha and Steve. Together as they pick at their food, toss restlessly in their beds, tear apart every fragment of Stark's life SHIELD can get its hands on.

She's taken. Practically in front of him. He never stands a chance.

Natasha's gone too.

**OoOoO**

He doesn't know why he goes back. There's no reason. They've already searched the entire place. Yet the tug in his gut draws him to the Malibu mansion and he slides through the night. Intuition. Desperation.

The water still falls. Tony disabled the AI at this location. Steve's going in blind.

Shield at chest level, breath short and shallow. There's something here. Something he missed. Something, something. Tony and his tinkering in the lab. Tony and his questions about skin.

Tony staring into the void and the void staring back.

**OoOoO**

Glint of light on metal. He edges forward. Soft whir of gears. There. In that corner where wall meets window. A figure. Silver. Curled over and cowering. He hesitates, shield wavering. Kneels and extends a hand. Cloud break and full illumination and he falls back, heart stuttering.

It's Pepper. But not.

Human. But not.

Skin and muscle smoothed in metal. Flesh slicked with metal. Bones coated in metal. Wires and organs and sinew all mixed up. Limbs covered in the stuff. There and not and horrible. The head, what's left of it, twists towards him, spine disks outlined in LED. But the eyes. Clumped mascara over shiny plates over terrified pupils. He reaches and she shrinks but not from him.

Behind him. A flash of white blue in the corner of his eye. Pain explodes in the back of his skull.

**OoOoO**

He's on a table. Gleaming metal. That's the where. Insanity is the why. Tony appears, bent at the waist and tilted forward like vultures examining carrion.

"The others are waiting," Tony says. He's got a stain splashed around his neck, brilliant crimson against the pale of his shirt.

It's difficult to concentrate past the pain and the terror. Whatever bindings Stark used, they're thick. Strong. Designed to withstand an enhanced soldier's horrified attempt at escape.

"It's better this way," says Tony.

"It's better this way," says Tony, tranquil smile smeared across his lips as he cuts. Cuts and tears and shoves metal in.

"It's better this way," says Tony, pulling human out and forcing robot in.

**OoOoO**

The others are there. Glittering and bloodstained.

Eventually he sits up, movement stilted and unnatural. His body sparks, a twisted and grotesque amalgamation of circuitry and nerves. Impulses and code colliding in his skull. Electricity hums through his veins, pulses through alongside the blood.

Steve levers up from the table, feels Tony's eyes the whole way. He makes it to the door, pauses. Goes out and waits for footsteps to stalk him.


End file.
